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Mark Twain/Transcript
Transcript Text reads: The Mysteries of Life with Tim and Moby A boy, Tim, and a robot, Moby, are in a boat. TIM: I love summer vacation. Moby hands Tim a letter. Tim reads from the typed letter. TIM: Dear Tim and Moby, Why is my teacher making us read stuff by Mark Twain? From, the Rid TIM: Well, he was a pretty important writer. Mark Twain wrote over 30 books and hundreds of short stories and essays. An image shows Mark Twain. TIM: His most famous books are The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. An image shows these books. TIM: Twain's real name was Samuel Langhorne Clemens. He was born in 1835, in Missouri. An image shows a baby Twain. TIM: He started working at the age of 12 as a printer's apprentice, or helper. An image shows a young Twain working as a printer’s apprentice. TIM: Later on, he worked as a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River, a silver prospector in Nevada, and finally as a newspaper reporter. Images shows a steamboat, a prospector, and a newspaper. TIM: He used the pen name Mark Twain, which was an old-fashioned boating term that meant two fathoms deep. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Well, a fathom is about two meters, and a pen name is a name that writers make up for themselves. As a reporter, Twain traveled around America and Europe, collecting all kinds of weird and interesting stories along the way. An animation shows Twain taking notes while talking to a man on a train. TIM: His articles became favorites for the way they mixed humor and exaggeration with serious facts. After settling in Hartford, Connecticut with his wife in 1871, Twain wrote his most celebrated novels. An image shows Twain's house in Hartford on an autumn day. TIM: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, published in 1876, tells the story of a trouble making kid in a small Missouri town. In one of the novel's most famous scenes, Tom tricks the other kids in the neighborhood into painting a fence for him. He even gets them to pay him for the privilege of doing it! An image shows Tom watching a kid paint a wood fence. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Yeah, he was a schemer. But the story isn't just about Tom's adventures. It's a clever satire, too. MOBY: Beep. TIM: A satire is a work that uses humor to make fun of human failings like greed and racism. Tom's best friend is another mischievous kid named Huckleberry Finn. In 1884, Twain published The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, all about how Huck helps Jim, a runaway slave, escape to freedom along the Mississippi River. Along the way, they meet all kinds of colorful characters, including conmen, backwoods people, and thieves. An image shows Huckleberry Finn and Jim using oars to guide a raft down the river. TIM: For all these reason, Huckleberry Finn really captured the spirit of the country at the time it was published. Instead of writing in the formal style of his time, Twain wrote Huck Finn in a lower-class dialect, full of slang and bad grammar. MOBY: Beep. TIM: A dialect is a local version of a language. Point is, he wrote it the way people really talked. Most of America's big 20th-century authors like Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner, cite Mark Twain as a major influence. Side by side images show Hemingway and Faulkner. TIM: Throughout his life, Twain continued to travel the world and speak of lecturing tours. Some of his witty comments at parties and speaking engagements are as famous as his writing. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Like, It is better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than open it and remove all doubt. MOBY: Beep. Moby giggles. TIM: Um, another? Okay, I have never let my schooling interfere with my education. MOBY: Beep. Moby looks confused TIM: No, he wasn't against schools; he just thought experience in the outside world was important, too. Moby crosses his arms and frowns. TIM: It's a joke. A joke! Category:BrainPOP Transcripts